The Damned eBook

Closing my book, I let them run. For, with this
chance reflection came the discovery that I could
not see her clearly—­could not feel her soul,
her personality. Her face, her small pale eyes,
her dress and body and walk, all these stood before
me like a photograph; but her Self evaded me.
She seemed not there, lifeless, empty, a shadow—­nothing.
The picture was disagreeable, and I put it by.
Instantly she melted out, as though light thought
had conjured up a phantom that had no real existence.
And at that very moment, singularly enough, my eye
caught sight of her moving past the window, going
silently along the gravel path. I watched her,
a sudden new sensation gripping me. “There
goes a prisoner,” my thought instantly ran,
“one who wishes to escape, but cannot.”

What brought the outlandish notion, heaven only knows.
The house was of her own choice, she was twice an
heiress, and the world lay open at her feet.
Yet she stayed—­unhappy, frightened, caught.
All this flashed over me, and made a sharp impression
even before I had time to dismiss it as absurd.
But a moment later explanation offered itself, though
it seemed as far-fetched as the original impression.
My mind, being logical, was obliged to provide something,
apparently. For Mrs. Franklyn, while dressed
to go out, with thick walking-boots, a pointed stick,
and a motor-cap tied on with a veil as for the windy
lanes, was obviously content to go no farther than
the little garden paths. The costume was a sham
and a pretence. It was this, and her lithe, quick
movements that suggested a caged creature—­a
creature tamed by fear and cruelty that cloaked themselves
in kindness—­pacing up and down, unable to
realize why it got no farther, but always met the
same bars in exactly the same place. The mind
in her was barred.

I watched her go along the paths and down the steps
from one terrace to another, until the laurels hid
her altogether; and into this mere imagining of a
moment came a hint of something slightly disagreeable,
for which my mind, search as it would, found no explanation
at all. I remembered then certain other little
things. They dropped into the picture of their
own accord. In a mind not deliberately hunting
for clues, pieces of a puzzle sometimes come together
in this way, bringing revelation, so that for a second
there flashed across me, vanishing instantly again
before I could consider it, a large, distressing thought.
I can only describe vaguely as a Shadow.

Dark and ugly, oppressive certainly it might be described,
with something torn and dreadful about the edges that
suggested pain and strife and terror. The interior
of a prison with two rows of occupied condemned cells,
seen years ago in New York, sprang to memory after
it—­ the connection between the two impossible
to surmise even. But the “certain other
little things” mentioned above were these:
that Mrs. Franklyn, in last night’s dinner talk,
had always referred to “this house,” but